To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

[Kairin]

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of To Aru Kagaku no Railgun ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about the BD/DVD-only footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

• General impression of the series.
• Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
• Thoughts about the animation quality.
• Characters/Character Design
• Voice Acting
• Which kind of footage (BD/DVD-only) you feel you'd really like to see.
• What the show meant to you.
• What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun

[RPG_Fanatic]

Lets see.

Animation Quality: 10
Voice Actors: 10
Script: (9 for first half, to 5 for second half)
Soundtrack: 8
Editing: 9
Enjoyment: 5
Emotional Involvement: 5

I liked the portions of the anime that animated the manga. I also enjoyed the portions of the second half that linked to the main story, but it just dragged on for too long, that I had trouble getting into the final story arc.

Of course the Touma and Biri Biri moments were the comical high points for me.

Overall: 7

I will admit this, if a second season of Index had been announced at the end of the last episode, I would have bumped my score up to a nine.

[Haak]

Let me start off by getting the more controversial stuff out of the way first: This is going to piss a lot of people off, but...I honestly liked Majutsu more than Railgun. The thing I liked about the ToAruVerse was this whole dark mystery surrounding the Magic world. I honestly didn't care much for the Science side. Touma didn't nearly come across as annoying to me as he did with most people, and I just loved the priceless comedy associated with his misfortune. Whilst there was plenty to lol about in Railgun (most of the comedy coming from Kuroko), the comedy wasn't as funny to me. Not to mention that the entire main cast is female. I don't know about the rest of the guys, here, but I need a male character I can connect with. Emotional involvement with the characters is important to me, when watching an anime, and I just can’t get that much from a bunch of girly-girls. Plus Railgun has a lot more 'easy going' feel of things, and I liked Majutsu's "Dark and intense" feel better. So in the end, Railgun was never really going to be better. Not that it wasn’t much worse. I really love the ToAruVerse but I gave Majutsu a 7, because of it's many flaws and I stand by that. Railgun doesn’t deserve anything less than a 7, though as well. So I guess Railgun is merely just a somewhat weaker 7.

The Level Upper storyline was great and all, but it only consisted of a few episodes and relied on a lot of single episodes at the beginning to set the scene. The episodes that followed afterwards weren’t that great and were average at best, except for the last episode which I think ended strongly, despite some clichés.

There are only two things that prevent me from giving this show a 6: Saten and Kiyama. Saten is quite easily the best character in the series for me and is definitely on my favourite character list. It’s not just her warm bubbly and quirky personality. I sympathised with her easily in her struggles in the Level arc thanks to how unbelievably human she was and it produced one of the most emotional scenes I’ve ever watched: her breakdown over the phone with Uiharu and Uiharu’s following encouragement. And what’s more was that, unlike other anime, it was followed up on, even after the Level Upper arc, showing that psychological problems can’t be solved so easily with Epiphany Therapies and the like. Kiyama didn’t win my heart as much as Saten but she came close. Her flashback which showed how she opened up to the children in her class and she loses them all in one fell swoop was heartbreaking. It was so wonderful to see her get her much deserved happy ending in end.

This comes as a bit of a problem now, because I suspect that if there is a second season of Railgun that follows on to the Sisters arc, we won’t be seeing much of Saten nor Kiyama anymore. Nonetheless, though the science side of the ToAruVerse isn’t my favourite side, it’s still a side I like a lot and it’ll be interesting to see how Misaka become so broken as she did in Majutsu. Kind of irritating how they didn’t announce a second series for either Majutsu or Railgun, but Railgun has proved quite popular so I’m sure it’s bound to happen. Here’s hoping.

[edit]

Looks like RPG Fanatic beat me to the punch. Son of a bitch...

[Ashaman]

Oh, I agree. I preferred Index to Railgun, even though Misaka is one of my favourite characters. I very much enjoyed this series, but Index was closer to my tastes.

However, I still very much enjoyed the Level Upper arc, the emotional impact it had and showed of Saten and Kiyama was excellent.

Kiyama in particular hit me hard, trying so hard for the children she had come to love. The end of the last episode really tugged my heart strings.

The second arc and the... I don't want to call them fillers, but the in between episodes were a bit of a low point, but by no means terrible.

I enjoyed the second half of the series, even if it wasn't quite as good as the first.

Over all, it was good and I enjoyed it for what it was, a funny series that could really show some emotional impact of Academy City, a scientific city that freely experiments on humans in an effort to acheive Level 6, and how it treats those who fail, the lower levels, particularly 0's.

Because from my understanding, what Tess said was true. Everyone is an experiment for the sake of SYSTEM.

[Daisu]

Animation Quality: 10
Voice Actors: 9
Script: 7
Soundtrack: 8
Editing: 9
Enjoyment: 8
Emotional Involvement: 7

Overall: 8

I enjoyed it better than Index. I really liked Misaka as the main focus and they did a great job with Saten. I really hope there would be a second season, because it would be deserving and would touch upon the more darker elements that the timeline would lead to.

[Shinji103]

Animation Quality: 9
Voice Actors: 10
Script: 7
Soundtrack: 8
Editing: 9
Enjoyment: 7
Emotional Involvement: 7

For the actual series itself, I'd give it a 6.7-7. It's definitely worth a watch, but I wouldn't call it anything close to a masterpeice overrall. Of course, very few things could actually be called a masterpiece.

And same as the people above, I prefer Index to Railgun as well. Index had more of a serious feel to it, while Railgun leans very heavily on the "naive," easygoing side. A lot of that is due to the action not being depicted as very serious thanks to the severe lack of anybody coming even close to receving even remotely treatment-worthy wounds in the series' "serious" battles. I've said it before, but while I love Mikoto to death, it's just really hard to take her seriously when the worst she gets are bruises and people like Touma Kamijo, Kenshin Himura, and Ichigo Kurosaki bleed by the gallon to win their fights.

Also as pointed out above, the middle episodes of the two arcs had quite a few low points, which definitely hurt the overral score. The beginning and ending parts of the arcs were good though, and I definitely liked the ending (despite a handful of small negatives), even if it continue with making the good guys seemingly invulnerable to anything more than a bruise.

I'll definitely be watching S2 though if and when they roll it out.

[AlitY]

Animation Quality: 10
Voice Actors: 10
Script: 9 (For First Half and End)
Soundtrack: 10
Editing: 9
Enjoyment: 8
Emotional Involvement: 8

I really enjoyed the series overall some interesting arcs and crossover points between railgun and index, but towards the middle it began to go downhill with the fanservice but I did like the episodes and enjoyed the achademy city/ korozuma arc but that was about it, the daycare center and modeling episodes were just boring and have no re-watch value at all. At the end of the series the story really began to pick up again with an old character comming back and some new characters being introduced to us but overall the last arc felt very rushed, it's a shame the series was not 26 episodes as apose to 24 because they could have made the ending far better with it not all being crammed into 2 episodes.

I have to say I would give the series an 8/10 but thats more or less because I love the characters than the actual plot which at points was very thin and almost no existant in some of the very early episodes. Anyway like I just mentioned the best thing about the series is the characters and how there so easy to fall in love with and adore, some of the other high points for me were the references to Index at times like when Komoe Sensei gives her explination of good students and bad students to Tessou Tsuzuri or when you see a place that was in index and then they happen to walk past it in railgun again e.g. the bookstore where Touma goes with the Imouto before she get's killed by accelerator.

Anyway good series but there are far better things to watch in your spare time but I don't think those other alternatives would be as enjoyable as this series. All thats left to do now is wait paitently for season two of index or mabey we'll get an accelerator and last order spin off that could be interesting.

[Archon_Wing]

I didn't like Index-- dropped it actually, so I guess the show wasn't meant for me. For obvious reasons, I preferred Railgun simply for the awesomeness that is Mikoto Misaka and she's the main focus of the series. The first 1/2 didn't really interest me at all. It meandered about and I just didn't really see more than silly antics by cute girls. Now that's not a bad thing, but it just wasn't particularly memorable or even that funny. The midpoint showed some decent action, but then immediately went back to fillerish stuff and I dropped the series.

I came back later, and the 2nd half seems far superior overall. Even the fillers made me laugh a lot. I will praise the series for putting effort into character development. The characters grew on me eventually, even though I didn't like most of them at first. It eventually paid off as not only was the finale dramatic, but there was enough emotional involvement to make it moving. The last few minutes in particular... just great. Many anime fail miserably here with a finale that seemingly wastes your time, but Railgun pulled through and made me feel that all of this was worthwhile. It did get cheesy at parts but none too offensive. The most important part is that they made me care about the characters and what happened to them. It was also just fun to watch as opposed to a chore like I felt during the earlier episodes.

I really don't have much else to say, so 6/10-- decent. I'll also praise the OP/ED and how they integrated in the last few episodes. It just worked.

[aliasxn]

Animation Quality: 8
Voice Actors: 10
Script: 9
Soundtrack: 8
Editing: 8
Enjoyment: 10
Emotional Involvement: 8


8.7/10

I loved this show, I'm a little sad that it's over. And biri-biri is really awesome, deffinitelly one of my favorites female leads of all time. My only complaint is that there wasn't enough Touma, I would've loved to see him interacting with the girls, especially Shirai.

About that, i think the author should really make Railgun into an alternate story separated from Index. This way fans who want a Touma x Index ending will get it, those who want Touma x Biri-biri ending will also get it, and he can insert Touma into the story without worrying about plot holes.

[serenade_beta]

10/10

The main thing being the staff's love for Ruiko. I liked her before, but the anime's version is just too adorable. Thanks to the staff just loving to give her spotlight, her popularity went pretty high. Her community even beat Mikoto's on nicodouga, to my surprise.
Of course, great thanks to her voice actor too.
Just by this, I can say I'm very satisfied with how the anime turned out.

As for the rest of the anime, I'm pretty satisfied too.
For the most part, the art didn't collapse noticeably.
The story was good too. No problem with the staff focusing on side-characters. The episode focusing on that megane in Anti-Skill was deadly boring though.
And the songs were nice too.

One unfortunate part would be that fat guy didn't come back all transformed into a handsome guy with that effort he showed during that running and confess to Ruiko, but all of that was pretty silly to imagine in the first place, you know~~~

Also, another thing this anime set for me is that Index worshipers are terribly annoying. One noticeable example being "walt" from the episode 24 thread (first page).
Iyah~, dinner's going to be good tonight if a 2nd season of Index never appears. Even if it is announced, I don't really lose anything, so a win-win situation. And if a 2nd season of Railgun is announced, it'd be time to bring out the alcohol. Cheers~, all, and to all a good night~!, it would be.
Eh? No, I don't drink though.

[RedWing]

Animation Quality: 7
Voice Actors: 7
Script: 3
Soundtrack: 5
Editing: 5
Enjoyment: 2
Emotional Involvement: 0
Overall = 4/10

Disappointment. That in one word manages to sum up Railgun and the time I spent trying to work out what the show is trying to do. Misaka Mikoto started out the season as a great side character from Index who could get developed, instead they just turned her into a 2D goody-goody overpowered little girl. The sisters arc in Index told us more about Misaka than this entire season. Kuroko sexually assaults Misaka numerous times and we are supposed to find that funny? If Kuroko was a boy, would you find it funny - I think I would find it perverted. The final arc has the antagonist turn batshit-crazy for no damn reason. Infact the entire final arc is built upon stuff that doesn't make sense. How did Kiyama get bail? They just let criminal's out for cash?
Not to say the show had no good moments - The times when the level upper arc actually worked with the plot were enjoyable. But overall Railgun simply didn't live up anywhere near to its potential.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun - A good show if you want to see little girls prance around, otherwise avoid.

[Icehawk]

Overall I preferred Index over this series as it had a more consistant level of drama and action and an overall better story. Misaka and Kuroko are awsome characters but this series ended up having too much random fillerish stuff thrown in between the major plot events. They had some really missed opportunities to have more connections to the Index side of things. For example, I still cannot believe they didnt ever once mention even in passing, the events of the Misaka clone and Accelerator arcs from Index. So much incredibly serious shit happened with those events you would think they would have had some sort of reference to them or even some further perspective on them given this series timeframe is supposed to overlap with that of Index. Its just bizarre that despite how life changing those events were for Misaka, you would never even know they ever happened if you hadn't seen Index.

In the end I rate the series an 8 on this poll but it's really more of a 7.5 due to the unnecessary filler and missed opportunities to connect with Index and the overall less epic feel of the series. I love Misaka and Kuroko as characters and have no regrets watching this, but I would prefer for the next series to be a proper continuation of the Index storyline.

[wingman32x]

Just finished Railgun, and it was awesome. I especially loved the conclusion because Saten, my favorite character, saved the day lol. This is better than Index IMO. The plot was a lot easier to understand IMO. I didn't like the plot of index, it got confusing keeping up with each faction and their goals, but I liked the characters, setting, and everything else, so Railgun was perfect for me. As mentioned before, Saten is my favorite character. I really connected with her because I shared some of her struggles/insecurities. So it was really neat to see her play a major role in the main conflict. Uriharu was okay, but she kind of pissed me off when she got mad at Kuroko for doing her job. Misaka is awesome, too. It was a blast seeing the girly side of her that was hidden in index. It was also neat to see how she acts normally, under normal circumstances. I was surprised to find out that aside from being a level 5, Misaka is a pretty normal girl that likes girly things. Kuroko... well, let's just say I'm not a fan. The plot was good, too. It was pretty neat seeing Harumi wake up those kids after all that time. And it was really cute when they wished her a happy birthday over the blimp. The cameo's from index were well done too, especially touma's. He appeared at the most random times. Index's cameo was funny, too. I also liked how it was all about friendship. About not shouldering burdens by yourself, but letting your friends help you. Overall, Railgun was a good Anime. I'm a sucker for this type of anime, so I give it an 8/10.

[-Sho-]

Animation Quality: 8
Voice Actors: 8
Script: 4
Soundtrack: 8
Editing: 5
Enjoyment: 5
Emotional Involvement: 1

Overall : 6 / 10

That was a good anime focused on Misaka and Kuroko , also they introduced Saten and Uirahu who are good character ( Saten my fav )
Some good actions . Misaka was the highlight yeah . Touma's appearance in this show was hilarious . Index's one was useless ...
But i didn't enjoy the story .. still prefer Majutsu no Index .

[tsunade666]

Animation Quality: 10
Voice Actors: 10
Script: 5
Soundtrack: 10
Editing: 10
Enjoyment: 1
Emotional Involvement: 1

Overall = Painfully BARELY 6

It's painful for me to watch. I like the characterst but the story is just not my type. First episode is okay then after the week..... I said to myself after watching. what's this? then another week pass and it's becoming more painful to watch. Its funny yes. Seeing girl do ecchi stuff but at same time its annoying.

As for the story is good if its in the CLIMAX of the arc but other than that. Just barely and painful for me to watch. If its not funny maybe I just drop it and other than saten. I ignore the others. I should have like Mikoto but the story here makes me get angry at her. Uiharu is okay. She turning into more comical character or rather all of them are.

I like the actions but " the no wounds and blood that should have been their type " totally ruins it for me. But still its good. They rack up some money from those people who love this kind of show. So good for the studio and staff. Bad for those who anticipated it but get's disappointed.

The whole plot is fine as long as its in the main story but those episodes between are really...... nah forget it. As for the animation its top notch. They really spend some money. Well they will be getting more than what they spend so they don't hold back much. The Seiyu are great. I love the ones who do the voice.

Besides that I love Saten . Saten = 5 + painfully 1 from the other aspects of railgun.

I like Index more but not the anime the novel. The anime of index is also tiresome.

[klare]

i feel the story is not very strong but the characters and their interactions are very good, even the side stories are handled well

the downside is sometimes, the characters are too cute...

as for the never-ending comparison with Index, i like Railgun much more

Animation Quality: 8
Voice Actors: 8.5
Script: 7.5
Soundtrack: 8
My favourite character: Saten-san (she is too cute)

Overall = 8/10

[BlueDo]

Don't believe in numbers, and I don't like to be elaborative, so:

Sigh... I haven't even finished the series yet.
Don't even talk about the second half.

My biggest primary complaint is that Mikoto is completely out of character.
In the anime, she's depicted as a perfect role model, whereas in the manga it's shown that she does indeed have an issue with pride, as she's kind of full of herself for being the only one to work from a level 1 to a level 5.
Oh, and it didn't even show the tomboyish side of her.

But overall, the directing was good.
Everything connected in some way or another.
I definitely would've enjoyed this more if I didn't compare it to the source material.

[kyosak]

Well I just finished this series tonight and I enjoyed it thoroughly from beginning to end.
I can also confidently say that I liked Railgun way more than Index.

I think the one thing that really bugged me about Index was Touma ... The way he is always throwing his body out to try and save random strangers was just too illogical for me to take, lol.
And what was with introducing Index as this important figure, and then just tossing her aside as a "Touma~ feed me" comical relief character? lol

Storywise, Index was much more deep of course, but I never really found the whole magician vs. nouryokusha world to be all that interesting... I guess what I enjoyed in Railgun wasn't even the plot, but the characters themselves. Misaka and friends were so much fun (esp. Kuroko, lol) that I didn't even mind the fillers.

I guess I'm the type who watches shows more for the characters than the story? I didn't even know this about myself, lol. I don't even like moe-blob shows like K-On .... Kind of surprised at how much I really enjoyed Railgun.

[synaesthetic]

Syn's Extremely Abbreviated To Aru Kagaku no Railgun Review.

I started reading the manga first. I like it quite a lot, and it has a good balance between comedic fanservice and serious asskicking. But like the series it spun off, the animated adaptation upset this balance.

The Railgun anime has too many episodes. It has too much filler. It has too many useless and boring parts. The series took way too long to really start the Level Upper arc (especially after the little teaser with the shot of the guy's MP3 player in #01), and ended it way too abruptly. Then it broke again for more filler/fanservice before starting the Ability Crystal arc and ended that one too abruptly, too.

The two primary plot arcs, though... despite being abrupt, they were executed quite well. I enjoyed watching Level Upper animated after having read it.

On technical merits... J.C. Staff did a good job. The art's a level above To Aru Majutsu no Index, keeping the same style, just much more detailed and pretty. Voice acting was good, nothing to write home about, but good. I prefer Uiharu's character design in the anime as compared to the manga (she looks taller, thinner and more gaunt in the manga).

Unfortunately the weakest part of the series was the music, which is where a huge portion of my enjoyment of a series comes from.

The OP/ED themes were screechy and annoying; I skipped them every time after the first, unlike Index's OP themes, which I routinely would watch just to hear the songs ("PSI-missing" is especially good). The BGM was utterly forgettable. I can't even remember a fragment or two of melody after watching the last few episodes a day ago.

Animation Quality: 8
Voice Actors: 8
Script: 6
Soundtrack: 1
Editing: 8
Enjoyment: 6
Emotional Involvement: 7

Composite score is 6.28, rounded down for the sake of the poll--my vote is a 6, "Average." It was an average series with some really good points and some definite Crowning Moments of Awesome, but I probably won't keep it on my HDD, and I doubt I'd buy BDs if it hits stateside.

Notice: For this kind of thing, this kind of "modern magic slice-of-life" story, I prefer the Darker Than Black route (80% asskicking, 20% comedy-fanservice) to the Index/Railgun route (even split asskicking/comedy-fanservice), even though I did enjoy both franchises. YMMV.

Or better yet, the Kara no Kyoukai route... Over 9000% asskicking!

[LastResolve]

Animation Quality: 9
Voice Actors: 9
Script: 6
Soundtrack: 8 (the only anime with nice openings is index/railgun)
Editing: 9
Enjoyment: 8
Emotional Involvement: 4 (no i dont get emotional over anime sorry)

well for starters the original story with touma was far better cuz it applied magic vs science
wich made the story unique yes touma did save random strangers and even risk'd his life for them but in a way he was thrown to the city cuz his parents didnt care about him much
so in a way everyone that traumatized would do that (that doesnt explain his altitude after the memory lose but...nvm that for now)
railgun focused too much on fan service....i mean ok it had some nice and cool action moments it had its science it was intrested plot but the whole destroying facilities arc was missing and really it should focus more on misaka...